Artists have forgotten how to draw | Hacker News Reader

Artists have forgotten how to draw

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70 pointswebmaven93 comments

I really think that just like everything else in modern times, drawing or the act of actually doing something that requires talent or skill is too laborious to get monetized for. The other day on YouTube, I saw a guy swinging an upside-down bucket of paint over canvas while standing next to it with another person and discussing the entire thing like they were watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. He has hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Later, came across another artist who makes hyper-realistic pencil drawings of people where each picture takes 2 to 3 months to make and looks literally like a photo-copy. He has a couple of thousand subs and barely gets any views.

Honestly this is more the difference between putting your personality to your art vs just your art - I also post my paintings online but I hardly get the views of people making shorts with their face and revealing the artwork, usually no matter how mediocre it will have a lot of followers.

The reason for this is that content creation is no longer about the content per se, and I say this as a content creator myself. Content created today serves two functions beyond actually producing something that another person will appreciate for its artistic beauty:

(1) It serves as a place where other people gather to interact. People gather in such ways now more than ever because of the loneliness created by advanced technology. Therefore, being trendy is more important than being artistic. That's why total garbage like the Avengers movies is so successful: it's because it panders to the lowest common denominator and therefore is an ideal gathering place for the lost souls stranded by technology.

(2) If content is not a place for people to gather, then it is simply content that teaches other people to produce more content. In fact, some of the most successful content on YouTube is simply content designed to help people produce other content that no one will watch most of the time.

While both these functions were active to some extent in humanity's past, it is only now that they function to their full extent. They are magnified by modern technology and other reasons for art are being minimized.

Sounds like you’re mostly describing streamers? There’s a lot of educational and news content on YouTube as well.

I meant mainly artistic creators.

Can you please share the channel with hyperrealistic paintings?

I wouldn’t call photo-copying an art. Art is creative. Copying isn’t.

Why isnt copying creative? Isn't it fairly well understood that a lot of creativity is derivative anyway? That in the act of being artistic, artists borrow and are influenced by other works?

People who use computers are giving the computer instructions. All people who use computers are software developers.

Agreed. It's an impressive and practiced talent.

Art comes from another place.

For so many in tech, not understanding art had little consequence beyond shitty power points. Now it's going to waste a lot of money on worthless art products.

artist who makes hyper-realistic pencil drawings of people where each picture takes 2 to 3 months to make and looks literally like a photo-copy.

To you that is art. To me it is kitsch.

I don`t care if it took 3 months to make something that makes me want to strangle the artist at birth or if it took 10 minutes to produce something that makes me feel there are other humans in the world.

That`s the problem with art: there are no mensurables, it is completely subjective. Probably that is what makes it art.

Knowing how to make a photocopy by hand with drawing implements isn't knowing how to draw— it's knowing how to make a photocopy. People who think this makes them competent artists are always bewildered when their portfolio gets them rejected from c-list art schools. So many in tech also failing to understand why that is will get a lot of worthless whiz bang generative image products funded only to flop when the vc runs out.

This is an unfortunate by-product of the times. To paint well, you first have to draw well. And drawing well can only be accomplished with both serious talent, discipline and an egregious amount of hours in classic study. Which is not so different than, say, the violin. But the art world is a cover for money laundering so there's been a collapse of criticism and expectations to the point where, literally, anything goes and almost all of it is complete dross.

There are a few warm embers still out there, as the author mentioned, but only two true schools and he missed one and mislabeled the other. The Florence Classical Arts Academy (where my daughter spent part of her high school years) and, even better, the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Surprisingly, the former has as many Russian teachers as the latter.

Maybe not money laundering but often there are organized groups of dealers who combine to pump up a specific artist, and dump their inventory.

Buy up works. Easier if the artist is not alive.

Start placing articles, puff pieces on the artist.

Interest increases, prices rise, sell off inventory.

When inventory gone, end the PR blitz.

On the other hand:

Paying too much for something is a known money laundering technique.

Example, pay a "web shop" in a tax haven country for a web site redesign. Who's to say what "should have" been paid.

Did we forget how to draw... or are there so many people involved in the arts these days that there are far more poor artists? This article is completely subjective in the sense is there is no statistics of how many 'good' artists there were in their supposed golden days versus what we have now.

I fully expected the article to end in 'git off muh lawn'.

This is disingenuous. First, classical anatomy copy drawing is rarely mandatory in art school because that's not what art is about anymore. (For another discussion, that it never was.) This was not inadvertent, not done while nobody noticed. Instructors and students noticed that art had changed. Classical drawing schools still exist if you insist. Second, drawing still very much happens in art - it's just not the kind of anatomy obsession these people care about. Just like they call "art" a very specific sub-part of the art world. And it's not like David Hockney himself draws in that style anyway. He could but he doesn't. He has taste, he has interests, and this isn't it. Can it come handy, useful? - sure - but so can a million other things.

Sorry but I think Michaelangelo and Leonardo knew much more about art than you.

For your definition of "art", most likely yes.

The interesting thing is that music composers don't do this. They know music theory. They don't hit a bassoon with a tennis racquet and say, "Your definition of music may vary."

The dancer in Stomp may or may not know music theory. And analogies may or may not be useful.

I will argue or grant that most visual artists do learn to see - even though they very much do not all see the same thing because seeing is also subject to preferences and intellectual choices. Visual arts have certainly gone far and wide. For much of it, even calling it "visual" is a stretch. Sure.

Dancers aren't normally trained in music theory. Percussionists are but, having studied modern drums for five years at a conservatory, I can tell you with some confidence that most drummers don't know music theory, because they don't really need it. Because most of music theory has nothing to do with percussions. Why do I need to know harmony to play the drums?

So, bad example.

A better example would be the intonarumori by Luigi Russolo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intonarumori

But the truth is that this kind of wild experimentation with the limits of musicality has never caught up in the same way as modern art has. There is possibly a reason for that. I suspect that it's far easier to ignore something Duchamp's fountain than Russolo's instruments... just because the latter make noise and you can't stop hearing it unless you run away.

Btw, I heard some recordings of the intonarumori at a modern art museum in Switzerland, and I thought they were actually ... pleasant? In some sense. But then I find Cannibal Corpse pleasant so I probably have uncommon tastes (though not rare).

John Cage certainly did.

And you speak for Michaelangelo and Leonardo?

Do people really believe there are no curators of, say, the Uffizi and the Louvre? Do people think that we don't generally agree on levels of accomplishment and mastery -- that when you go to the Prado, it's not just a random selection?

Amazing straw man.

I said nothing of curation, mastery, or art history in general. My comment was challenging the parent poster's assumed knowledge of the opinions of old masters.

Do you refer to this: "For another discussion, that it never was."?

Sorry, by parent poster i meant Voldecar who was responding to you.

I don't necessarily agree with you on the 'that it never was' comment but I wasn't objecting to that opinion.

This is the assuage that contemporary artists tell themselves at night to go to sleep. The fact remains that people are crushing in to see the art of 100 years ago. Monet still makes people swoon.

And for our times we have a banana on the wall and we're not supposed to argue because taste is relative and someone likes that ... as we slow step our way down the staircase to oblivion.

There is sooooo much more contemporary art then that one guy who stapled a banana to a wall. If that is all your exposure to contemporary art then you aren't trying very hard.

Taped. This isn't arguing out of ignorance. I feel well-versed enough in contemporary art to both make my accusation and stand behind it.

There is some irony to being caught off guard by someone suggesting it was stapled instead of taped. Is it an important aspect of the piece? Important enough to correct someone over.

There are other places to draw parallels from. Runway fashion shows nearly always show bizarre items no sane person would wear to the local grocery store. But they each, individually, make a new statement that draws some sort of reaction from the observers. It's the very essence of art.

Off the catwalk, scenes like Lady Gaga wearing a meat dress to an award program might offend some people, but you can't deny the originality and subsequent reaction. There were certainly people claiming it wasn't fashion or art.

Yet if someone aped it, it would be suddenly boring and passe, and people would totally recognize it as being derivative. And that sure sounds like art.

For every artist sticking a banana to a wall I guarantee you there is another one with the windows of their studio blacked out and making intricate oil paintings of whatever you think is impressive.

There is simply too much art being produced in the contemporary art world for your argument to make any sense at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_Show

>reviews were filled with accusations of quackery, insanity, immorality, and anarchy, as well as parodies, caricatures, doggerels, and mock exhibitions

110 years ago

Sure. Some of the movements in the last two hundred years were shocking. But is this the case of us pushing boundaries of art or the collapse of all criticism? That's the question.

Let's take your example of the Armory Show. It took only two or three decades for Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase to be recognized for its genius.

Jeff Koons' Pink Panther was almost four decades ago. Anyone feel like a fool yet? The art world has egg on its face and it's not because it's pushing boundaries; it's pushing junk as a front for money laundering and pretending that taste is relative because it likes the money and talentless people like to call themselves artists.

Way to create a strawman art community in own head just to hate it.

And it is not like past was composed of Monets only. Or as if people decorated their houses or their products by old paintings only.

But are they crushing in because of the anatomical accuracy of a piece? No. They are doing it because of the names of the artists. There are mountains of works that are as precise as anything by the 20 most loved artists that get no lines in museums. The motivation for most people to see a piece by Vermeer is the same as the motivation to see a piece by Monet or even deKooning.

You don't learn classical methods and anatomy to be precise; you learn it to be correctly imprecise.

Picasso couldn't have achieved in abstraction if he hadn't been classically trained. And that's easy to verify: take an imitation (of which there are many) and an original. Even someone not well-versed it art can pick out the original.

There are quite a few of his paintings from early days that demonstrate quite clearly that he was highly competent in classical painting techniques.

Don’t even get me started. The general population values realism, replication, and mindless feats of willpower.

Most people don’t realize simplification and economy of stroke is orders of magnitude more difficult, and takes a true lifetime to master. Capturing a complex subject in 3 perfect strokes which uses visual language to convey what it is.

Nothing wrong with either, but the amount of sackriding for the former just gets tiring.

You're not disagreeing with the author. No one complains about Picasso, Cezanne or Van Gogh. They mastered the process and --only then-- took it to new places.

What we're seeing is a sea of people using Expressionism as a veil for lack of training.

A virtuoso at the piano may experiment with discordant notes. A novice banging on the piano keys and calling it music is not the same thing.

> A virtuoso at the piano may experiment with discordant notes. A novice banging on the piano keys and calling it music is not the same thing.

That's why I always chuckle at people scowling at learning music theory because of "originality, like, if you don't you'd just reinvent most of it on your own...

I hear that a lot. And I always ask the same thing in return: Show me a riff, within the context of a song, that you came up with entirely on your own, and demonstrates the benefits you have obtained by not being held back by learning music theory.

They always play a variation of something you can trace back to one of their favourite songs. A blind copy. No doubt by someone who actually does understand the theory.

So, "theory holds you back" should be followed by "from copying your heroes and knowing why they make the musical choices they make."

There are many musical traditions which evolved completely orthogonal to [western] music theory. That such traditions can exist and have performers who express virtuosity contradicts the claim that all 'riffs' originate with [western] music theory.

They still have theory. I have an amazing book on playing Rajas. But if I played them right now, it would sound more like messed up blues because I haven't learned that aspect of how to play Raja music correctly, and only by coincidence the blues pentatonic scale is similar. I have an idea what Raja sounds like, but that's rather incomplete knowledge of the associated music theory. Applying the wrong theory produces the wrong sound. Enough evidence that there is theory in all forms of music.

You might be right about a certain western bias toward [western] theory, but it has no bearing on theory in general. Especially how it applies to each culture's distinct music. The same bias appears in the other direction, because Indians regularly say they think Western music sounds out of tune and lacking expression. I don't think anybody brought that up as an issue though.

The difference, pertaining to this thread, is understanding music, versus merely aping riffs you learned from your heroes, with no regard to the underlying music and how things that fit, fit.

Okay so we can generalize to music theory outside of the western canon but then aren't we also allowing in "the theory of the music made by not learning western theory but rather by listening to lou reed riffs and copying his hand movements"? At this point everyone can have their own music theory and the argument that musicians need to learn theory seems a little vacuous? Or do you draw the line at certain branches of established theory greater then just the western canon?

For the record I am very much in favor of musicians learning music theory (of whatever sort). However it seems odd to say that a musician can not learn music without first learning theory. Did we have music theory before musicians?

Perhaps you can make the case that given the systemic biases in our modern taste for music it is _hard_ to break away from modern music theory, but that doesn't make it impossible.

See the extended technique of Fred Frith, John Zorn, Bob Ostertag, Derek Bailey, Ikue Mori, etc as an example.

> However it seems odd to say that a musician can not learn music without first learning theory.

Except nobody said that ? Just that by learning theory you will learn faster than reverse engineering the songs you like into bases components (conciously or not). And, well, nothing stops anyone from learning more than just western music theory

> Did we have music theory before musicians?

We had engineering before engineers but we come to conclusion teaching someone to build bridge is far more effective than letting them stumble till they work out the basics...

> Except nobody said that ?

Ksaj claimed that a musician who learned to make music without music theory will inevitably end up producing music which is actually derivative of the music of someone else who did study theory. I reject that claim.

> We had engineering before engineers but we come to conclusion teaching someone to build bridge is far more effective than letting them stumble till they work out the basics...

I do not think you can reasonably compare something as subject as music with mechanical engineering. Yes you can make music which has as much structure as the Golden Gate bridge but no that is not the only way to make music.

Some people's ears are better than their theory. Plenty of examples.

There are different types of understanding, and self taught musicianship is not excluded from this. In fact, they involve exactly the same type of effort as learning theory in the standard fashion. They rarely even deviate from it. The old blues masters might not be able to name the chords and scales, but they're pretty strict about the blues and pentatonic scales, turnarounds, and how to start and end riffs on the correct underlying chords, when and how to throw in a 7th chord (or even what a 7th chord is, and major or minor or diminished, for that matter), etc... which means they absolutely know the theory even if they don't verbalize it well in a classical manner.

Simply copying someone and saying theory isn't needed is akin to using Dall-E to generate a drawing and calling yourself an artist for having done so.

And that's the distinction being made here.

TBH I didn't read the article, just the title alone got me going. Haha

That also drives me crazy is when its super obvious artists on instagram (where btw it's quite difficult to find very good inspiration) all have a very dark moody or "weird" style when its obvious it's covering up lack of drawing skills. You cant mess up a nose when you draw a 3 foot long nose and call it your style!

Instagram is full of people who draw realistic faces.

You are correct, you probably had to see my first comment for the other half of context.

There is a difference that I can see in the work of artists who have spent time learning to draw, and those that haven't. I can't explain it, but I can see it.

I think it's because classical drawing teaches you some basic perceptual skills that are very hard to pick up any other way. It gets you out of your head and gets you to see what's actually there, not what you think is there. It's kind of a subtle difference, but it's important.

Not learning to perceive things in that manner is a big handicap for many artists. They don't even need to produce work in a classic or representational style. But it's still aparent if they are lacking those skills.

Another thing is that drawing, via rough sketches and prep work, provides a way to work out the bugs in your finished work. It provides a way to actually think out what you're doing, in the same way that writing about something is actually thinking about it [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36560254

Learning to see does still matter, yes. It's not the same as classical anatomy copy drawing. And seeing color (which is really hard for the common civilian) is not going to happen through classical anatomy. So we can choose our battles while still paying attention. Architecture schools try to teach seeing also - not through classical anatomy.

One of the things that's sort of annoyed me recently is the number of artists who begin every video of their artwork with "Everything you're about to see is drawn by me in painstaking detail, taking over XXXX hours to complete" and then they show off a photorealistic pencil drawing.

Yeah, it's cool. And I guess if you want to talk about art in a purely technical sense of taking a recording instrument to paper or a canvas and creating an image, then it qualifies. But there's no interpretation there. Basically just one of the world's slowest photocopying machines. Technical talent with zero imagination.

technical skill matters, and using that technique skillfully for realist interpretations is one of the easier bridges for neophytes to understand the technique

abstract interpretation within the confines of a particular medium is harder to appreciate if you haven't seen manifestations you can readily understand

Plenty of people get bogged down in techinque and never evolve beyond that, choosing to acquire as many tricks as if it’s a numbers contest. But I agree that some time alone practicing some skill is an important part of the process, the only difference is in measure. Too much obsession with skill is harmful

> Despite these accolades, Stuart knows that there is always more to learn: “She’s hesitant about calling herself an artist,” says Horler, “And that is quite a traditional view. It shows how misunderstood art is today, that people can just call themselves artists… From the Renaissance right up until at least the Twenties, you had to qualify. And that’s missing now.”

It seems like when we decided that art doesn't have to be representational, having traditional drafting and drawing skills began a slow and perfectly rational decline. Is that even controversial? It may not be coincidental that the role of fine art in our culture declined at the same time as well, but that's a conjecture I can't defend in this paragraph.

On the other hand, there are more illustrators than ever, and illustrators still often technical chops and craftsmanship. Comic book artists and digital painters and the like are (or were, before AI) flourishing and doing really exciting work in the non-fine-art space.

Calvin & Hobbes man thats all you need. No better example of the smallest of dots and sqiggles having magical effects on people. Bill Watersom didnt go to a fine arts school. He just found Beauty in the simplest of things.

Very much so! Another artist who couldn't draw :-)

If playing at home: Picasso learned some classical drawing, and could do it, and moved on from it by age 12 or something (I kid. By a year or two.) Watterson, erm, less so - and it turns out did very well with a different kind of expression.

The first three semester every evening our whole illustration class had to draw chair still lifes for 3 hours. The prof would come arrange some chairs and went home... it's still a fucking pain in univeristies that do a classic curiculum.

I ran into a drawing instructor like that. Now I can laugh about it. I was fortunate that I didn't have to ever, ever choose to take another class with that guy. His focus was his dinner. He was still there. But busy.

For everyone playing at home it's a style of art teaching that goes "you know what to do. get to it." (On the rationale that the brush/pencil mileage is the only thing that will do the teaching. Ugh.)

We stumbled onto "Landscape Artist of the Year"[0] some years ago.

While preferring more realistic art, just watching a random selection of people get their humanity on while under a deadline is the most fascinating and relaxing viewing imaginable.

My prejudice against impressionistic art didn't survive any real time with this series. One artist in the first couple of series fit my stereotype of the smug young jackwagon treating the whole thing like a joke.

Highly recommended.

[0] https://www.skyartsartistoftheyear.tv/landscape/

I love that series. There is also Portrait Artist of the Year with the same presenters.

Who's doing all the book covers and advertising art, then?

There's plenty of good realistic art coming out from young artists. Take a look at anime fan art. This is not a lost skill.

Great, fun, creative, expressive awesome art yes - and in insane quantities - but rarely anatomically correct, right? And in that generation I would guess few of them took classical anatomy classes. But then for the people targetted by the fine article, this is not "art". That's the problem.

There is plenty of anatomically correct art. People do that, usually as a hobby or for school tho. There are whole books about how to do it too and whole youtube channels. There ia also a thing called hypperrealism where artist strives to be indistinguishable from photo.

This is just not something all that many people would paid for all that often.

Published manga artists in general often have a very strong command of anatomy.

American comic artists are often big fans of attention to anatomy - however deformed - and will go on forever discussing it :-)

But manga or anime? really? Do you please have interviews or other presentations where that comes up?

I found this one, where it seems more of a hobby:

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/interviews/2023/6/9/intervi...

Anime fan art, from Fanime 2023.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjhUNTKqua4

I'm familiar with manga and anime art, pro or fan. This is not the level of anatomy we were talking about. Not even close. Classical anatomy drawing is this kind of thing:

https://www.google.com/search?q=classical+anatomy+drawing+sh...

https://www.google.com/search?q=classical+drawing+florence+a...

This does have direct application in american superhero comics. There the artist draws detailed muscle modelling and attempts to place tendons and shape of underlying bones all in the right place. Even when the character is really not human :-) I looked for one but wasn't able to quickly pull a video showing a critique arguing that some muscle is not quite located and anchored correctly.

I rarely see that concern in manga or anime. Very little in the video you linked would show such a concern. The usual manga artist does proportions, yes, often altered to serve their intent - but in my mind rarely goes to that intention of physical correctness.

Let's try and pull some manga muscle ... this is NOT classical drawing or derived from that:

https://www.google.com/search?q=manga+sports+muscle&tbm=isch

Can anyone recommend some good online resources to learn how to draw?

It's a skill that I've always wanted to improve but I don't know where to begin.

My brother, an artist who has not forgotten how to draw, immediately gave me his copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain when I asked the same question a few years back.

https://www.drawright.com/

Also, Keys to Drawing, by Dodson is really good, with more of an emphasis leading to painting. The Natural Way to Draw, by Nickolaides, is really good for life drawing.

Another good one: Fast Sketching Techniques by David Rankin

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/fast-sketching-techniques-capt...

Consider what drawing means to you, or what style really is important.

Sketching is very much vibrant, alive, well and creative. With many, many books dedicated to that direction.

Life drawing same things.

Which "drawing" direction attracts you?

This is pushing it a bit but there are lists like:

https://webneel.com/different-types-of-drawing-styles-techni...

https://finearttutorials.com/guide/drawing-styles

A more likely approach is to consider which artists you like and what they do. If it is perspective in travel sketches that interests you, then don't waste time on classical anatomy.

"If it is perspective in travel sketches that interests you, then don't waste time on classical anatomy." Mild disagreement here. I'm personally more interested in landscape drawing and painting, but for practice I turn to faces and figures, preferably life drawing. It's much harder to tell whether your perspective drawing is a little off than to sense that there is something wrong with the proportions in a life drawing or a Bargue exercise.

That's interesting. I do both city view landscapes (from nature, on site) and life drawing sessions and short portraits and to me the two are so different that I don't feel the skills transfer. And "quick sketches" on the street are different still.

For life drawing, IMO we have super sharp intuition for a face or body being "wrong" in its proportions. And except if you are an american superhero comic book artist we have only a little intuition that shape detail is not quite right. And getting that perfect is seriously hard - that's classical anatomy drawing territory. I pay attention to proportions but I sure don't obsess about modelling except where it "defines" the person - like sharp cheekbones or chin perhaps. And that's not classical anatomy stuff - just the basics. For landscape by constrast for me, it's about being able to abstract it while not making a blatant perspective mistake. And I don't feel that's an intuition problem for most people. More analytic. Anyway :-)

Draw a box - exercise based set of lessons.

A good option is to start by precisely copying simple drawings: while (precise) copy is of little to no artistic value, it's immensely useful to learn the craft.

For a beginner, I would recommend a two-fold plan:

1) spend 80% of your time copying well-chosen works (things you like, and that are at your current level);

2) spend 20% of the remaining time, first getting a firm grip on perspective, and then experimenting, sketching around from life/memory/imagination, etc.

Perspective is foundational[0].

Balancing copy with experimentation is essential: when sketching around, you'll make mistakes and confront yourself to various problems: you'll then be able to look for solutions in the works you're copying.

For 1), perhaps consider Bargue plates[1]: they were precisely designed for beginners, by experienced artists/teachers. There are numerous tutorials (e.g. [2]) on the Internet covering the details, as the plates are used by essentially all modern "ateliers".

A final note on preciseness: it has two main advantages:

1) you can "easily" self-evaluate (as it gives you a clear goal);

2) you're more likely to notice subtle, fine details you would have otherwise missed with a hastier approach.

[0]: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46915/pg46915-images.ht...

[1]: https://barguedrawing.wordpress.com/

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZm7qih71-w&list=PLOxIqHbLWH...

If you want to have some value, precisely copy from photographs.

Note that a camera (predictably) loses information: working exclusively from photographs can ingrain bad habits to unguided beginners. Furthermore, drawings are often simplified in various ways, stylistically, but not just: trees for instance are more believable, and more efficiently rendered, as vague masses, rather than painstakingly detailed.

For the same subject, a drawing/painting and a photograph contains similar information, but with different (lossy) filters; getting to know "artistic" filters is one thing a beginner wants to practice.

It's not a bad idea to work from photographs, it's actually very useful, and an interesting technical exercise, but one generally will want to compensate for the camera filter, so as to make the end result more appealing.

Incidentally, this[0] was posted a few hours ago, and precisely "illustrates" those points. You also have those "famous" pictures[1] demonstrating how difference focal length distort faces.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WpqmQTmnxs

[1]: https://imgur.com/gallery/kUBPKTy

I guess we all admire the classics, but what about all the talent on platforms like deviantart? it's a new age, and these artists are pushing boundaries in ways unimaginable to the old masters. contemporary art is more than just NFTs. it's about expressing ideas in fresh, innovative ways. so instead of longing for the past, let's embrace the evolution of art.

I've found digital works to often display more creativity than non-digital ones. My pet theory is that digital tools remove so many constraints over traditional mediums: infinite undo, no color mixing, a full chromatic palette, "liquify", layers, etc. that artists have more room to experiment.

Finding a balance between tradition and novelty is perhaps the most comfortable position: tradition brings experience accumulated over many lifetimes, it's foolish to reject it. But it's equally unwise to systematically reject novelty either.

because contemporary art has emancipated itself from painting. I would argue that the globalized, highly technological world needs new formats to deal with these new realities.

The eternal lamentation that art has lost its craft is simply no longer appropriate.

contemporary art has emancipated itself from taste

Contemporary art has emancipated itself from your taste. It now serves every conceivable taste. Including yours, though you may have to (like everyone else) look around to find what you want.

usually does

But that's exactly the point. Contemporary art is not about taste, it's about reflecting on the world we are living in. Economy, politics, technology...

Just look at artists like Simon Denny or Hito Steyerl

Hyperrealistic drawings are a thing. And so are classes focused on classical drawing.

Artists who know how to draw have been treated with loathing for decades.

Plenty of people still know how to draw, they're just not getting hired as artists, because only content creators are being hired for roles that would have been filled by artists in other contexts.

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